


Midnight

by Selenay



Series: Friendship and More [9]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode Related, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-02
Updated: 2005-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-15 04:39:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selenay/pseuds/Selenay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's after midnight and she can't sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnight

**Author's Note:**

> Set just after 'The Hot Zone'

Atlantis at night had a unique feeling, a quietness and stillness that some people found eerie.

Elizabeth liked it. Granted, she rarely wandered the city at night unless there was an emergency, but every now and again when she couldn't sleep she liked to walk around the occupied areas and reassure herself that everything was normal. During the day there were people moving around, busy and efficient, but at night the city slept.

Except for the mess hall, of course. Elizabeth had intended to walk the hallways and corridors until she felt ready to sleep, but her feet betrayed her and she was at the doors of the mess without really knowing why. There were a couple of scientists sitting in one corner having a low-voiced conversation and a bleary-eyed young marine was grabbing some breakfast before starting the graveyard shift. Elizabeth shrugged and went in, heading for the pot of strong tea that had become the coffee-substitute around base. They were saving the remaining coffee stores for extreme emergencies.

She took a seat at a table as far from the others as she could. None of them appeared to notice her - maybe they were already so used to senior officers prowling the corridors that she just blended.

Elizabeth had a recurring nightmare. It was the reason why she was here rather than curled up in her own bed. Not that she had actually slept yet, but she knew that the moment she did sleep, she would be back in the nightmare and she didn't feel strong enough for it yet.

The dream was always the same. Elizabeth is in the control room and the Stargate activates. A crackle on the radio, then General O'Neil's voice saying something that Elizabeth never quite catches. She's always aware that it's a dream, which is why she knows with a feeling of dread that when she turns around, Peter's dead body will be slumped over the console.

By the time Earth contacts her, she's the leader of a base of corpses.

That's the point where she always wakes up, that horrified realisation that her actions have killed everyone she brought to Atlantis.

It could so easily have come true today. If the nano-virus had been more contagious, or airborne, or if Peterson had got into a more populous part of Atlantis . . .

So many possibilities and yet, somehow, they had come through with only four deaths. Elizabeth knew that they hadn't really deserved to come through it so lightly.

If John hadn't disobeyed her direct order, she really would be commanding a base filled with corpses right now. She was still a confused mess of gratitude and anger over that. Do all commanders have to deal with these contradictions?

At least she felt like she was handling these days better than she had in the beginning. It had been months since she'd thrown up after a bad day and today she wasn't even second-guessing herself. She was just left with the cold realisation that one day she might not be so lucky. There might not be a solution to whatever killer they'd found and until that day Elizabeth would just have to get on with the mission and try not to borrow trouble before it found her.

Because there would always be another emergency, another chance for them to kill themselves. It was the way things went in a place like Atlantis and the only thing that any of them could do was cope with each problem as it arrived.

The quiet 'whoosh' of the mess door opening pulled Elizabeth out of her thoughts. She looked up in time to see the Marine politely ushering someone through before hurrying away to his duties.

Elizabeth had always maintained that the phrase 'her heart skipped a beat' was nothing more than romantic fantasy. When Teyla smiled as she spotted Elizabeth, though, she was forced to admit that there was no other way to describe the way she shivered inside.

No matter what Elizabeth told herself, Teyla's smiles seemed to destroy any defences she constructed. She could visualise Simon for hours, stare at his photograph, re-read the letters he had written when she spent three months in Prague, but the moment Teyla smiled she wanted nothing more than to kiss her.

Elizabeth sometimes wondered whether she was going crazy.

"Can you not sleep?" Teyla asked and Elizabeth had to blink a couple of times before remembering that she should reply.

She tried to shrug in a way that looked casual rather than stressed. "I need to unwind a little, I guess."

Teyla nodded, her smile softening, and Elizabeth concentrated on not reaching out and taking the other woman's hand. "It has been a difficult day."

Silence fell, the kind of awkward silence that comes between two people who can't say what they need to say and are too tired to lie to each other for a while. Elizabeth's fingers itched to touch Teyla, to feel the silky mass of her hair and the warmth of her skin. Teyla's smile faded and was replaced with an expression that Elizabeth was afraid to name.

She cleared her throat and pushed her mug away. "Drinking this tea probably isn't helping."

Teyla stepped back and her expression became neutral. "Yes, it is more suited to waking up than finding sleep."

Elizabeth stood and gestured to the door. "I should go."

She was almost at the door when she heard Teyla say quietly, "Sleep well."

Elizabeth dreamed that night and woke exhausted, but it wasn't the death dream.


End file.
